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IT is a young man's game. If you have 25 years of experience and I have 10 years experience, and we are up for a web development job... guess what... we both have the same experience, because there was no such thing as web development 25 years ago. There are a lot of developers who put a lot of time in front of Powerbuilder, and that time is unfortunately worth almost nothing today.

There is a definite stigma against older guys who have stayed hands-on without becoming management or consultants, or started their own shops.

San Diego is a tough market even in the best of times... but there are jobs out there if you have the specialties and niches people are hiring for.

There are many older workers who have kept up with the latest trends and technology. I certainly have. A younger worker has nothing on me, except less wrinkles. I am fitter than the average bear, and probably have less health problems than some of the younger, heavier, youngsters out there that spend most of their time playing video games in their mother's basement.

Persons of any age who are stuck in a rut and refuse to improve their skills deserve to be left behind, IMO. Also, I know there is the stigma that older people don't want to change the way they do things, but I have seen this behavior in younger people also.

I may delay my move, but I eventually will be moving out there, and I will
enjoy the challenge of proving people wrong.

"my job was outsourced",that says it allAnd here is SD qualcomm hires so many Indians you feel like you are in Bombay.HB1 Visas , cheaper hires etc...that should be stopped in this market for sure. You might want to see if you could just freelance or consult, starting your own business, although its tough in this market starting a new business.

My job was outsourced to IBM, who then outsourced it to IBM-India. Every time I see an IBM commercial, I raise my middle finger to the TV. There were many Indians brought over by IBM to work at the company I was at. You can imagine how that was received by the people still employed by the company. Their friends and coworkers were laid off so someone can come over from another country, who barely speaks English, and do the same job for half the pay?

And American companies wonder why people have no loyalty to them anymore.

My IT career was working with mainframes and peripheral devices since the end of the 70's until 2005, and I had to relocate temporarily to the LA area to get my foot in the door. My previous employer closed their San Diego branch, and I found that the market is so specialized that you are only considered if your resume is almost an identical match to their requirements, and it better be recent. Since there are few data centers I was pretty much out of the loop for any local jobs in the industry.

It took over a year for me to find work after my unemployment compensation expired and before COBRA did. My pay is chopped a third from what it was, but it still isn't any worse than the current pay rates for the type of work I was doing, which would probably be graveyard shift. It's clerical work, but it full-time, does has benefits and a normal work schedule, and is less stressful. No working off-shifts, weekends, and holidays.

One black female I knew who is also now over 50 is working for a Hi Tech Co near UTC that has been shedding it's workforce on a quarterly basis for at least two years and has been applying and interviewing at numerous companies in the meantime. She has a masters degree, supervisory experience, excellent communication skills and performance, solid experience, and stays up to date on current skills. She hasn't got any offers since being older trumps all of that.

There are many older workers who have kept up with the latest trends and technology. I certainly have. A younger worker has nothing on me, except less wrinkles. I am fitter than the average bear, and probably have less health problems than some of the younger, heavier, youngsters out there that spend most of their time playing video games in their mother's basement.

Persons of any age who are stuck in a rut and refuse to improve their skills deserve to be left behind, IMO. Also, I know there is the stigma that older people don't want to change the way they do things, but I have seen this behavior in younger people also.

I may delay my move, but I eventually will be moving out there, and I will
enjoy the challenge of proving people wrong.

Thank you all for your input and I wish you well.

I will be arriving in SD in about 3 weeks, have around 20 years exp. in IT. Heres the way I see the older vs younger IT worker debate.

Older worker pros
1. more experience
2. less likely to come to work after hard partying the night before
3. less likely to get into office drama/romance
4. more likely to work hard and smart, because they know they cant relax and coast
5. more likely to be management material because of above
6. generally more stable lifestyle which translates to more productive work

Older worker cons
1. dont have as much time to give to the company before retirement

Younger worker pros
1. more energy than older worker (debatable)
2. more time to give to the company before retirement (probably wont stay with the company for life anyway)

Younger worker cons
1. less stable life generally, prone to romance and partying getting in the way of work
2. less/no experience
3. not as good with customer facing jobs due to experience factor

Of course these are generalizations. I feel if there is a stigma against older IT guy it is misguided at best, since if I were an employer ( and I plan to be) I would take older guy over younger.

I do agree with the point made about older guy opening up his own shop or consultancy. Why work for someone else when you have experience enough to be independent!

Also think that OITG needs to stay in shape, and up on latest tech trends. Not that hard IMO.

Other older worker cons (I have seen these personally)
- often "set in their ways" and inflexible
- often slow in responding and adapting to change requests
- often unwilling to put in overtime or work off hours when necessary
- many have not kept up-to-date with their skillsets
- many have poor communication and social skills from years working in isolated development environments
- many have poor basic computer skills, i.e. they have trouble navigating the OS, using hotkeys, rapidly moving from program to program, etc..

My experience has been that most employers in San Diego do not practice a lot of ageism because there is a large, older ex-military population with good technical background. The larger employers in SD tend to have a lot of ex-Navy engineers. However the startups, internet companies tend to skew younger.

Where I work now there is a 50/50 split of older / younger workers. Our best people seem to be in the late 20's - early 40's, who have basically grown up with computers and have a high degree of facility with them.

I do think that if you are an 40+ dev and you are going up against the younger guys you are really going to have a tough time. San Diego is flooded with entry-level and early-career people. By the time you hit 40 it is really beneficial to have a high specialization that isn't easy to break into, i.e. Oracle certs or SAS or Data Warehousing. Those fields benefit from experience in a way that C# or VB programming do not.

Other older worker cons (I have seen these personally)
- often "set in their ways" and inflexible
- often slow in responding and adapting to change requests
- often unwilling to put in overtime or work off hours when necessary
- many have not kept up-to-date with their skillsets
- many have poor communication and social skills from years working in isolated development environments
- many have poor basic computer skills, i.e. they have trouble navigating the OS, using hotkeys, rapidly moving from program to program, etc..

My experience has been that most employers in San Diego do not practice a lot of ageism because there is a large, older ex-military population with good technical background. The larger employers in SD tend to have a lot of ex-Navy engineers. However the startups, internet companies tend to skew younger.

Where I work now there is a 50/50 split of older / younger workers. Our best people seem to be in the late 20's - early 40's, who have basically grown up with computers and have a high degree of facility with them.

I do think that if you are an 40+ dev and you are going up against the younger guys you are really going to have a tough time. San Diego is flooded with entry-level and early-career people. By the time you hit 40 it is really beneficial to have a high specialization that isn't easy to break into, i.e. Oracle certs or SAS or Data Warehousing. Those fields benefit from experience in a way that C# or VB programming do not.

I agree w/some points you make, not all. I really disagree on "poor communication and social skills" if anything, these skills should be sharper for older guy. Maybe in a secluded dev environment, as you say, but I was thinking of a more diverse IT environment. And if you have trouble navigating an OS youre not really an IT guy, young or old.

I myself am 51. I am always willing to put in overtime, because my kids are grown and out of the house. I am not set in my ways in any way - I took a long-term IT job in Europe that brought with it a host of new and exciting challenges. I keep up on my skillset and have been doing so for many years. Also if I didnt have basic computer skills I certainly wouldnt consider myself an IT guy. I just recently passed the CISSP and have been moving more into the info assurance arena. I like playing oblivion on my xbox 360. There are older IT guys over here with similar stories.

Those that are slow, unwilling to change and set in their ways ,not keeping up to date etc.,should probably not be in IT. I just think that older workers dont necessarily fall into these categories. I cannot speak for a dev environment though, just general IT such as sys admin, dba, help desk -- all jobs I have personally done.

I mean, for some industries you want the younger guy and maybe ageism should play a part -- fireman, police, military, pro athletes, (certain types of movies) anyhting where strength and endurance might mean life or death. But IT??? Isnt the general idea that the older you get, the smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable you get??? How much youth does it take to update a web page, replace a mobo or design a database?

What field are you in? I'm in Information Technology and am thinking about moving to San Diego. I'm 50 and have wanted to move to California since I was a teenager. I'm single, kids are grown, and I figure the time is right, personally, for me to move. Kind of scared though about finding employment, even in I.T. I'm about 1300 miles away and have applied for a few positions, but never get a call or email back.

The unemployment rate here in Oklahoma is less than 5%. But I can't stand living here anymore.

you should move to dallas instead

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